


Versus

by canis_m



Category: Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-22
Updated: 2006-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rematch long delayed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Versus

The pavilion was paved in geometric stone and golden sand. Pylons of wood braced pennants, their attendant streamers, the cloth awnings belled upward by a breeze that smelled of sweet bean syrup and perfumes. Beyond the pale of the awnings fell sunlight in clear striations. In the stands below, spectators shouted in the clipped accent of the capital. 

It was a strange battleground. Taiki tilted his face to interpret the wind. He had been offered dumplings of three colors on a jade skewer but declined them. Tea sat lidded and forgotten by his knee. Beside him, Enki hung splay-elbowed over the balustrade of the elevated box in which they sat, the two of them consigned to peacemongering solidarity. When the champions took the field below, Enki mimed clawing gestures with his hands, as if the right were at odds with the left. Heralds bellowed, and a bird like an eagle the size of an ox repeated the announcement on high for all to hear. Percussionists battered drums and shimmering gongs. 

Seeing Taiki's dumplings lying untouched, Enki pointed and asked the obvious question. Taiki smiled and gestured. Enki looked at him with some concern, but reached for the skewer. His chewing was phlegmatic: he kept only half of the corner of one eye on the match. _Ho-hum,_ he had said when they arrived. Another tournament. Old hat. Taiki wondered whether it was really so, whether one ever really got used to this breathlessness, this burgeoning and tightening of the breast. 

Battle was abstruse to him, but not beauty. The kings circled with the wariness of lion-dogs, eyes beaded on one another. At intervals they froze, poised in opposing stances like bronze guardians of a temple gate. Under armor En was dressed in red, Gyousou in unassuming green. The swords that lit their hands were not winter weapons. The match was safe as far as pitting tiger on tiger could be safe. In his selfishness Taiki hoped no blood would be drawn, not even scratches for his master to disparage. He did not want to spend the rest of the day apart.

Enki tipped his jade skewer at the audience in the stands. "There's betting going on down there," he said. "I got five yuan says yours takes it, two out of three." 

Taiki overcame laughter and surprise. "Isn't En Taiho cheering for King En?"

"Oh, you know, more or less. I just wanna see his face when he hears I put money on somebody else."

The breeze swelled and swept their manes back from their shoulders. With his heart in the arena Taiki saw none of the faces upturned--children clambering on their elders, begging to be lifted for a glimpse of not one but two kirin, their own En Taiho and the dark one, the rare one, who had come back from Hourai and death's door (so the stories had it) to save the kingdom of Tai--nor the stylish set of merchants' daughters who carried bluebirds in bamboo cages, waiting for a chance to release them skyward with no message but a sprig of orange blossom or citron. Faintly he shook his head. 

"I couldn't bet against Master Gyousou," he said.

"Didn't think you would. Look at that, now they're just posing. How long is this gonna take?" 

Enki squinted around a yawn. As his teeth clicked shut it happened: whirl and pivot, thrust, shrilling steel. The sword when it flew carved an arc of light in the air almost too keen to follow. The blade skidded a trail on the paving stones. King En grimaced a grin and wiped his trousers with an empty hand. 

Drums pounded the first round to an end. A rush of wings thronged the air, and petals showered the balustrade. The crowd broke its hush into a roar as Taiki's breath returned to him. He wondered, as he had been wondering all morning, how irate the court of En would be when his master failed to lose.

*

The court of En was not irate. The Three Ministers appeared one by one to exude accolades. A stunning accomplishment, a boon--awaited comeuppance--at long last a thorough spanking of the royal ass, and they had witnessed it, each of them, with their own eyes!--glorious triumph. Banzai to King Tai and Tai Taiho.

From their host came an invitation to wine. Gyousou must accept, be gracious, concede a draw or defeat at cups if neighborly relations required it. He looked to the divan where Taiki sat, attentive but unstirring.

"And you?" he said.

"Shall I come? Will En Taiho be there?"

"I cannot speak for En Taiho."

Gyousou's mood was rare. On returning to their guest hall at Genei Palace he had bathed away sweat, shed his armor for formal robes in which he moved now smoothly, now potently, as though battle-readiness continued to brim throughout his limbs. He paused at the circular picture window with its prospect of the courtyard, seeming to take no notice of the peonies. His presence transpierced the room. 

Taiki watched him with feeling grown too intimate for awe, fraught in turn by impulses to go to his side unbidden, to wait for his call. He felt a frisson at the pleasure of contradiction. 

"If neither of you are there, En will give me no quarter," Gyousou said. 

"No quarter?" Taiki rose. As day quieted to dusk he could perceive the outbreath of the garden, the motion of his own attendant spirits amid the shade. "Does that matter?"

"It depends how early tomorrow you want to sightsee."

They stood by the picture window. With a point of comparison at hand Gyousou glanced briefly at the peonies. If he weighed whether the pale rose or the rose-gold would look smarter against black, he found them both wanting. Taiki leaned across the windowsill to touch the nearer flowerheads in consolation. He had no thought of plucking them. He felt he might manage their portrait later, if brush and ink could be had, and a little time. 

He looked at Gyousou. "This kind of thing--the tournament, it's--"

"Games. Only that."

Taiki relinquished the flowers. "When all those people were going wild at the end of the third match, I thought, 'You're right to cheer, but there are a hundred better reasons--'" He paused to compose himself. "But I got caught up in it, too. Master Gyousou was very magnificent."

Gyousou burst out with a laugh. 

"It's true," said Taiki, as if he had been contradicted.

"Hush, enough. You can tell me that when I've done something to warrant it." Gyousou turned with eyes half-narrowed to face the far side of the courtyard, toward north and east. He extended an arm to accept his laurels nonetheless. "I could not have bested him before," he went on, "in the days when it would have meant more to me. But it's less a matter of experience than I once believed."

His tone fell to the murmur that made Taiki school his heart to beat more softly, to attune his whole body to hear. 

"You had better come. If you are with me I cannot be blamed for having won."


End file.
